Zia Haider Rahman

Zia Haider Rahman
Born Sylhet Division, Bangladesh
Occupation Author
Nationality British
Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford
Website
ziahaiderrahman.com

Zia Haider Rahman is a British novelist of Bangladeshi origin. First published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Rahman's debut novel In the Light of What We Know was released in the spring of 2014 to international critical acclaim, and is to be translated into several languages including Dutch, Hebrew, Spanish, French, German, Bengali, and Portuguese.[1]

Background

Rahman was born in rural Bangladesh in the region of Sylhet and has said that his mother tongue was Sylheti and not Bengali, although he understands some Bengali.[2] He moved to London as a baby after the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation. His family were squatters in a derelict building before being moved to a council estate. His father was a bus conductor and waiter and his mother a seamstress. Rahman attended a comprehensive school. In an interview with Guernica, he remarked that he "grew up in poverty, in some of the worst conditions in a developed economy."[3] Rahman took a first class honors degree from Balliol College, Oxford, with further studies at the Maximilianeum and Munich, Cambridge and Yale Universities. He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs in New York before practicing as a corporate lawyer and then as an international human rights lawyer focusing on corruption.[4] He has also worked as an anti-corruption activist for Transparency International.[5]

Novelist

In the Light of What We Know received plaudits internationally, earning high praise from literary critics such as Louise Adler, Amitava Kumar, Wendy Lesser, Joyce Carol Oates, and James Wood.[6] Rahman has stated that most of In the Light of What We Know was written in upstate New York at Yaddo.[7]

Others

Rahman was invited by the Kolkata Book Fair in January 2015 to deliver the Ashok Kumar Sarkar Memorial Lecture 2015. He talked about freedom of expression.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Author's website Retrieved on February 4, 2015
  2. ↑ WNYC The Leonard Lopate Show May 1, 2014
  3. ↑ "How Do You Know?" October 23, 2014 Guernica.
  4. ↑ January 12, 2014 The Guardian.
  5. ↑ "Author's website" December 3, 2014
  6. ↑ See entry for In the Light of What We Know.
  7. ↑ "Spotlight on Yaddo Artist Colony" September 3, 2014 NEA.
  8. ↑ "On Freedom of Expression and a Writer's Predicament" January 29, 2015

External links

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